Making history: Genesee County Bar offers salute to 'pioneer women'

In honor of Women’s History Month in March, the Genesee County Bar Association remembers and honors its prominent women of the local bar. 

“The Association is particularly mindful of the Honorable Arthalu Lancaster, who passed away this month,” said a spokesperson for the GCBA.

Ruth Winegarden Berger, attorney Myron Winegarden's first wife, is quite possibly the first woman attorney in Genesee County, starting practice in 1929. She is believed to be one of the first 100 women attorneys admitted to practice in the State Bar of Michigan. She provides a perfect transition from families in practice to some of the women attorneys of the GCBA.

“While women have played an increasingly prominent role in the law in recent years, the number of women in the past 100 years is small, and the early practitioners were truly pioneers,” said the spokesperson. “The 1970 composite photo of the GCBA shows only three women, just over one percent of the membership.”

The first woman to serve as president of the GCBA was Arthalu Lancaster (Artie), who presided in 1987-88, some 90 years after its founding. Lancaster joined the bar in 1968 and worked in the Prosecutor's Office for two years before entering private practice. At the time she was sworn in, there were only two other women in practice in Flint, Judge Elza Papp and Maureen Jones McKenna. By 1987, when she became president, there were more than 50 women lawyers or about 10 percent of the membership. Today, nearly one-fourth of the members are women. Lancaster was elected District Court judge in 1989. Truly a pioneer, she did not see herself as a woman attorney or judge, but as an attorney who happenned to be a woman. She was proud to be a lawyer and a member of a profession that contributes a great deal to the community and the concept of justice. Lancaster retired from the bench in 2001.

Jean P. Carl became the second woman to serve as president of the Association in 1992. She had worked in the Prosecutor's Office, had managed one of the UAW/GM offices, and volunteered for child advocacy issues until her death in 2006. She also was very active with MSU College of Law, her legal alma mater.
Francine Cullari, the third woman president of the Association, began her term in 1999. She inspired many attorneys with her theme of “Service to the Community.” Cullari was long active as editor of the association’s bimonthly publication, Bar Beat, and has served on many State Bar and local bar committees. She has received the highest award of the State Bar and the Distinguished Alumnus Award from MSU College of Law. She continues to practice and teaches Business Law at the University of Michigan, Flint campus.

Susan Philpott Preketes was the fourth women president of the Association, serving from 2004-2005. She and Doug Philpott have the distinction of being the only father-daughter presidents of the GCBA.

Formidable. Ahead of her time. Tough. A fighter. These are some of the words that the Honorable Elza Papp has used to describe herself.
Another pioneer, Papp was sworn in as an attorney in Genesee County in 1945 and became Genesee County's first female assistant prosecutor in 1947. She was elected to the Circuit Court in 1965, becoming the first woman in Genesee County and only the second in the state to achieve that distinction. She served on the court until retiring in 1972. When she sought work as an attorney in the Cleveland area in the late 1930s, she was offered several jobs in large firms, as a secretary!

"The law", she said in an interview, "was really my life."

Judge Judith Fullerton is the second woman to have served on the Circuit bench, a position she held through 2000 when she retired. Fullerton was an assistant prosecutor and worked in the Flint City Attorney's Office. Before becoming a Circuit Court judge. she served as District Court judge. She is known for her strong work ethic.

Ramona M. Roberts was the first woman of color on the bench in Genesee County and is one of a handful of women to have served as judge. Roberts was a judge of the 68th District Court, the second woman of color to hold one of those judgeships. She has served as Chief Judge of the 68th District Court and as President of the Michigan District Judges Association. Nationally, Judge Roberts has served on the Executive Board of the Judicial Council National Bar Association.

Maureen Jones McKenna was the mother half of one of the earliest mother/daughter attorney combinations, before her daughter's practice was cut short by an early death. A second mother/daughter team that practiced together for a short time in the 1970s was Edwyna Goodwin Anderson and her daughter, Kathie Dones-Carson. Anderson served double-duty as a pioneer, being both a woman and an African-American.

“Proud of her many firsts, she noted that it says something about our society that no one had preceded her in categories that should, or could, have been filled by capable women and/or blacks that had been in the area for a century ahead of her,” the spokesperson said of Anderson. “Edwyna was admitted to the bar and in 1974 became the first black woman member of the GCBA. At the time there were about five women and fewer than 10 black attorneys in the county.”
Anderson had been a teacher for several years before becoming an attorney. She worked in the Prosecutor's Office. Anderson is perhaps better known for accomplishments outside the practice of law as a member of the Mott Community College Board of Trustees, as a member of the state Public Service Commission, and then as general counsel to the Duquesne Light Co. in Pennsylvania.

Former GCBA board member, Karen McDonald Lopez was named the first woman, and the first African-American woman, to serve as the Flint City Attorney, though many others have served as assistant city attorneys in Flint.

And then there was Eva Belles.

“Although not a lawyer, and not really of the GCBA era, it would be inexcusable to leave the GCBA women without some mention of Eva Belles,” said the spokesperson. “In an early case in which George Durand served as the attorney, some women won the right to vote in some elections, three decades ahead of the suffrage amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”

In 1888, solely because she was a woman, Eva Belles was denied the right to vote in a school election. She retained Durand and fought that decision up to the Supreme Court. The State Legislature set the qualifications for voting in school elections, and the statute indicated that every person who meets age, property, and parenthood requirements could vote in elections not involving tax issues. George Durand argued that the "every person" language in the statute and not the gender restriction found in the constitution should prevail. The Michigan Supreme Court agreed, and Eva Belles won the right (in very narrow circumstances) to vote.

The Eva Belles' vote is recognized by the State Bar of Michigan as a Michigan Legal Milestone and is commemorated by a bronze plaque in the foyer of the courthouse.